It's official: SBC Park becomes AT&T March 1 / S.F. Giants will be playing ball on field's second name change since opening in 2000

George Raine, Chronicle Staff Writer

Published 4:00 am, Saturday, February 4, 2006

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Mock up of Mays Gate showing what will be the new sign at the renamed AT&T Park.

Mock up of Mays Gate showing what will be the new sign at the renamed AT&T Park.

It's official: SBC Park becomes AT&T March 1 / S.F. Giants will be playing ball on field's second name change since opening in 2000

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Hold the phone -- the name of the San Francisco Giants' ballpark will change to AT&T Park, starting March 1, its third name since opening in 2000.

The Giants made the announcement Friday, saying the removal of existing signs and installation of new ones will have a completion goal of midsummer.

The name change comes as no surprise. The former SBC last year acquired AT&T and took its name. The new merged company has the naming rights to the privately owned ballpark through the 2019 season, and it was only a question of when it would be renamed AT&T.

The park opened as Pacific Bell Park, or Pac Bell Park, in 2000, the naming rights having been acquired by Pacific Telesis for $50 million in 1996 for 24 years. The company subsequently negotiated another contract that paid the team $8 million more for expansion of the rights.

Pacific Telesis became a part of SBC Communications, which became a single corporation without regional monikers in 2002. To reflect that change, the ballpark was renamed SBC Park in 2003.

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SBC, by the way, was a name change itself, from the original Southwestern Bell Corp.

Confusing?

"This is a way of life for corporate America, with mergers and acquisitions," said Mike Freccero, a human resources consultant from Danville and longtime season ticket-holder. "My preference would be one ballpark name, like in Chicago, New York and Boston, but in reality that will never happen again. But it doesn't change a sense of loyalty."

"AT&T played a critical role in the development of our ballpark and helped to keep Major League Baseball in San Francisco," said Larry Baer, Giants executive vice president and chief operating officer. The Giants had approached Pacific Telesis after repeatedly losing attempts for public support for a new stadium and coming close to moving to Florida. That was averted when private investors led by Peter Magowan stepped in and spent $365 million to build the park.

"There's a good chance the park would not exist without this partnership," Baer said of the company's $58 million investment.

Still, three names in six years?

"It has the ring of one-year free agency," said Don Solem, a San Francisco public relations consultant and ballpark regular. "But it's not going beyond the chatter stage -- like engaging in sports talk and two hours later wondering what the subject was."

Peter Osborne, the owner of Momo's restaurant across from the park, said he had lost in his own naming rights' effort. "I offered them $58 million in food credit if they would call it the Park Across the Street From Momo's," to no avail, he joked.

He said customers at times have bemoaned the park's name changes. "But the sun comes up the next day and the rooster says cockadoodle-do and the beer will be just as refreshing as it was last year."

Said retired San Francisco advertising man Hal Riney, "We have gotten over the shock of seeing our stadiums named after inappropriate brand names. Fifty-eight million? I hope they think it's worth it."

"We are proud of that ballpark. One of the best venues in baseball," said AT&T spokesman John Britton in San Francisco. "They faced the possibility of leaving and came to us to help them and we stepped up to the plate and, we think, we hit a corporate home run," he said.

For the third time, the Giants have turned to Debra Nichols Design of San Francisco for a logo and other graphics work. The designers selected a type font called city, which was developed in 1930, for the AT&T Park signs and logo -- a kind of combination of "late Victorian and early baseball," said Bill Comstock, Nichols' partner. "It's simple and bold and fits the architecture really well."

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